Good morning, everybody. For new people, I'm Taigen Leighton, the guiding Dharma teacher at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate. Welcome, everyone. I want to talk today about trauma and sanity. So, We've been in this pandemic, which is starting to ease maybe for almost two years anyway. And I think we all are traumatized. even whether or not we have lost loved ones or suffered economic distress, just this experience of quarantining to various degrees, the loss of 700,000 plus Americans and many, many, many more,

[01:27]

in other countries, we're all maybe a little numb. We're all feeling grief. So I think it's important to acknowledge that. I think it's all important that we all feel what we feel. So I've sometimes recommended the mantra. How does it feel that we actually feel what we're feeling? That we not try not to suppress that, that we don't become numb, that we show our vulnerability. There is so much to be sad about.

[02:31]

So this is personal to each of us. It also goes beyond the personal, but we've all been impacted. We've all had to make changes. And I've talked to some people who wanted to go back to the way it was before March, 2021, when everything sort of shut down and that's impossible. So, how do we acknowledge that our life has changed, that the world has changed? How do we feel this? How do we respond? So, for our Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Sangha, We have suffered the loss of our wonderful little storefront temple on Irving Park Road in Chicago, which we stopped sitting in back in March, 2020, and we sort of abandoned at the end of last year.

[03:57]

And we're working towards finding a new long-term full-time Zendo space. That's gonna be a long, complicated process. But actually, I'm very happy that starting in a few weeks, we will be occupying, at least for Sunday morning and Monday, for just for Sunday morning and Monday evening, Zazen and Dharma talks, we will be occupying a physical in-person space, Ebenezer Lutheran Church on the north side on Foster near Ashland. And it'll, you know, it's going to be a big adjustment to kind of get settled there. But, you know, I'm happy about this.

[05:12]

At the same time, we've lost much, but we've gained through the pandemic. The pandemic has taught us and actually helped us to feel the reality of interconnectedness that we talk about in Buddhism. So, we have with us in our Zoom, in our Zoom Zendo today, people from many distant places. and we're all here together. So we've gained many new participants. And when we're sitting Sundays and Mondays at this place in North Side Chicago, we will also be including all of our Zoom Sangha. So everything that's happening there will be available on Zoom. We're working out all the, we will work out all the technical difficulties, but it's great that we have people here from all kinds of funny foreign places, from Sweden, and from Ohio, and from Indiana, and Chingyu, I guess, is in Pennsylvania.

[06:26]

And Eileen, are you still up in Massachusetts? Great. So, and we have people from Southern Illinois. which I'm defining as everything south of 80. Sorry, Ruben. So this is an interesting, strange time. And even people who live in Chicago can come to our events at Ebenezer Lutheran by Zoom. And we'll have limited spaces. for COVID, social distancing and so forth. But anyway, there's a shift now. But still, nothing will be as it was before anywhere in the world. So we each feel some personal sadness, trauma,

[07:29]

We've all been traumatized by this. We have to acknowledge that, express our vulnerability. And there's also a kind of communal grief of all of us. So along with the pandemic, we are now or the pandemic as it is shifting or hopefully fading or well, maybe never will fade until we help provide vaccines to all the southern part of our planet, Africa. Latin America, Southern Asia. Anyway, we're all really interconnected. It's just, it's not, it's in our face now. So we have this communal grief as well as our individual personal grief and trauma. We are seeing the ravages of climate breakdown all around the world.

[08:36]

It's not theoretical, it's not in the future. It's, you know, fires on the West Coast, drought in many places, famine in many places is happening, enhanced storms, and what we would have thought of as bizarre weather everywhere in the world, in many places in the world. And in our society, we're also facing what's, you know, control of our political realms by white supremacy terrorists, by fossil fuel corporations being subsidized in spite of climate, by weapons manufacturers, who are active in our policy even after, maybe especially after we at least somewhat withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan anyway, and injustice in the courts, voter suppression, all of that is our kind of communal trauma and grief.

[09:55]

And I think we need to acknowledge that sadness and able to respond effectively and able to take action. So I think action coming out of rage and anger is not so helpful. Anger coming out of division. maybe not so helpful, but when we feel what we feel and we feel the sadness, that may inform how we can work at responding. So, but also we have to acknowledge our personal attachments. A big part is us and is seeing our own habitual deep patterns of grasping and anger and fear and confusion. So we practice with all of that.

[11:04]

And, you know, some of our habits sometimes we can actually let go, but often by becoming intimate by studying the self as Token says, we can not need to react based on those habit patterns. We can see what's happening and feel what we feel and give some space around how we respond or how we react. So we can respond from a deeper place. It's also important to practice non-attachment to the personal. On some level our personal ideas don't matter. Of course we all have personal views and opinions and

[12:10]

I acknowledge mine, but more fundamentally, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, we can have this view of planetary wholeness, of universal communion. We are one planet. And again, the pandemic has taught us that in visceral ways, not seeing friends and family for a long time, not going out so much, although, you know, some of us have and we all are responding in our own way. But how do we see the wholeness The planetary wholeness, how do we commune with the universal reality instead of attaching to our personal views?

[13:15]

This is challenging, but I want to talk about this in terms of Sangha. And Sangha has many levels. Sangha is a particular group of practitioners. So this is the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Sangha. But also Sangha is our whole interconnectedness with, well, with many groups. So each of us has other groups of people or other beings who we connect with. Those are our Sanghas also. Sangha just means community. How do we support community? How do we see, go beyond our personal views by joining and partaking of community, all the different levels of community? So one way to talk about this is that,

[14:25]

amid all the chaos of our world and all the cruelty that we can see in our world, it is possible to create islands of sanity. And Sangha is about that. How do we find, you know, Sangha is a kind of container of friendship, spiritual friendship. Sangha is a strange event. Some of us on this screen might never associate with each other if it weren't for this possibility of Sangha. So we have spiritual friends and we have as Sangha, as in various communities, this possibility of a container for friendship. So, Islands of Sanity exist in our world, in our society, even amid disinformation, denial of science, denial of the realities around us.

[15:45]

We can come together and Well, one way to talk about it is to express Dharma resistance. And I've heard the suggestion that a good way to do that is small groups. So this group here is maybe even too large to actually get together and talk together. So within our Sangha, we can have groups of four to eight people who talk together about what's going on and can think strategically about how to respond, how to act. to respond to some of what's going on in the world. But it's good to not, you know, just go off by ourselves and try and fix things. So, you know, it's not, Buddhism is not about fixing things. There's a lot that we need, that needs to be fixed. And, you know, if there's something that you can fix, great, but mostly we have to acknowledge our communion with all beings and see what we see and how, you know, how do we,

[17:00]

interact with the people we disagree with, trying to convert people to our particular point of view isn't so helpful. We need to listen. Some people maybe there's not much we can talk with about, and this is really sad. This is part of the sadness, family and friends who it was difficult to talk with about many things, some things, important things, and yet we can also interact from the places of common concern. So, you know, we have, we're all in this together. We can, you know, create a sense of separation between, I don't know, Buddhists and Christians, or Democrats and Republicans, or Chicagoans and foreigners, or Americans and foreigners.

[18:06]

And we all can create the alien beings who are different from us, beings of other races, beings of other ethnicities. They're different. They're not really human in some ways. It's possible to think that way. It's not so helpful. It's not real. But amid skillful media of disinformation, people get caught by that. But still, we're all connected. even people in Sweden or Pennsylvania or Ohio, we're all connected. So I want to hear from all of you, your perspectives on all this expressions of sadness, trauma.

[19:12]

You know, the thing about trauma is it can, we can turn away from reality. And it's possible to use meditation for that. Spiritual bypass is a kind of phrase that's used for that. We can meditate and feel the wholeness of things and ignore the difficulties in our lives and in the world. And trauma encourages that in some ways. We have to acknowledge that we've all been traumatized the last two years in some ways. and feel what we feel and feel the sadness involved in that and maybe feel the anger involved in a lot of what's happening. But then how do we actually respond from Sangha, from islands of sanity amid all of strangeness in the world? So I want to invoke one of my teachers, Joanna Macy and her three kinds of responses or actions and what she calls the great turning.

[20:21]

And this is something she talked about, you know, long before the pandemic, long before Mr. Trump was elected and so forth. So, but I think it still applies in our current challenged situation. So there are three modes of response or three modes of action that Joanna talks about. The first is holding actions. So this involves all kinds of political responses, contacting our congresspeople, going to demonstrations. contacting the media, whatever, all of the kinds of actions we might do to try and minimize all the damage that is clearly happening and that's going to increase. And we have to acknowledge that. We have to feel that. Climate breakdown is not going to go away.

[21:23]

It's going to get worse. Possible political repression in this country and the world is increasing. And how do we feel that and respond to that? So holding actions, trying to take care of, to strengthen the things that remain, as Mr. Dillon says, to take care of what we can to make things, to support sanity, to support kindness, to support communication. So that's challenging. That's the first kind of response. At the same time that there's this great sadness and trauma, there's this great turning. There's an awakening in the world. And the pandemic has supported that. We now see each other across state lines, across different countries.

[22:27]

throughout the world. We're all connected. And we may feel like we're only in islands of sanity in communities, but those are connected too. So along with all the things in the TV news and newspaper headlines that are happening that are terrible, there is a great awakening that's happening too. People are being more, through the pandemic and through everything else that's happening, young people, indigenous people are acting to support climate sanity. There's more diversity in our world. There's more diversity in our population in this country and around the world. There's, of course, more refugees from climate and war. And how do we include them in our islands of sanity?

[23:29]

So holding actions, trying to minimize the damage that is here and that is going to increase. How do we take that on? The second mode of action that Joanna Macy talks about is alternative structures. Alternative social structures outside of the usual, the Institutions that are supporting disinformation and cruelty. Alternative structures, so things like farmers markets, where we can get our food and see who's growing it. Many, many kinds of alternative structures, but I would say fundamentally Sangha is an alternative structure. that's outside of the usual institutions. So, you know, institutions, as institutions don't have consciousness.

[24:42]

They're just systems of, you know, implementing things. The people within them have consciousness. But anyway, how do we create alternative structures? So Sangha, community, is a way of being outside kind of counterculture is those of us from the old days, remember that idea. We are again, islands of sanity, or we can be, we can be containers of friendship, containers of caring, containers of mutual support, containers of awareness. So that's important. The third mode of response that Joanna Macy talks about is actually most relevant for Buddhist groups. And that is changing the hearts and minds of people, changing visions of reality.

[25:51]

And sitting on our cushions, facing the wall, facing ourselves, inhaling and exhaling, settling into this and doing this and sustaining this kind of practice over time, because it takes a while. But we can start to see, first of all, that the earth is alive. Mountains are alive, rivers are alive. We know that trees and forests have intelligence in their own way. We can talk more about that, but the world is alive. We think of the earth as a dead object that we can mine the resources of. We can drill for oil everywhere. We can, you know, damage the natural biosphere. Many, many species are going extinct because of that idea of the planet as dead.

[26:57]

But we can see, and this is something that is very much part of Buddhist heritage, that Dogen, our 13th century founder of what we call Soto Zen now, and other Buddhists going way back and Buddhist teachings support that. And our practice supports this sense of the world is alive. It's not just a dead object to exploit. It's a finite resource. It's actually also a living reality. So changing hearts and minds, changing visions of reality is fundamental to our practice and to Sangha. And it happens in different ways. And we each feel it in our own way. but it also helps to spread and share that kind of reality.

[28:01]

And beyond seeing the earth is alive, we can start to change worldviews, change worldviews, economic worldviews from competition to cooperation. When we see that we're interconnected, we can try and support cooperation amongst different people, different countries, different kinds of people, not be caught by the differences. But actually, the practical implication of that is to go beyond competing. and to go beyond aggression to negotiations, helpfulness, discourse. So this is an important part of how our practice naturally supports this worldview that's more based on, again, as Dr. King called it,

[29:11]

the wholeness, the universal wholeness, the planetary wholeness of things. We tap into that when we see Sangha and community. So I want to close by talking about Buddhist values of social connection. or basic Buddhist values. And these come from a Theravadan monk named Bhikkhu Bodhi, who was from Brooklyn. He spent many years though, living in monasteries in South Asia. And he translated, he's done wonderful translations of the early Buddhist texts, the Pali suttas. And anyway, he talks about various Buddhist values. So I'll just, I'm just going to throw these out there and we can discuss them if, if you'd like.

[30:18]

So one is solidarity. This is the essential unity of all beings. And that we, you know, we actually feel that and acknowledge that and see that we're connected with everyone and everything, every so-called thing with the whole natural order of things. So, second, love, which doesn't seem to be part of Buddhist discourse so much, but actually it is. Bhikkhu Bodhi defines this as concerns for the well-being of all. And we're going to chant the Metta Sutra a little later, where we say, may all beings be happy. So this is love in the Buddhist context, that we don't just take care of ourselves, that we see that we are connected to everyone. Then he mentions compassion. This is about the urge to relieve suffering.

[31:23]

Again, may all beings be happy. So, Compassion is trying, helping, wanting to, trying to find ways to relieve and help those who are suffering. Another one is justice, which again is, it's there in Buddhism, but it's not, it's not what's, it's not a usual way of talking in Buddhism, but it's there. And Bhikkhu Bodhi justifies that as to treat everyone fairly. It's not the way our current justice system works. If you can afford fancy lawyers, you have a different kind of justice from people who are poor or from black people now. Anyway, justice, and then courage. And this is difficult, but how to bring our values

[32:29]

our Buddhist awareness into action. And again, how to do that is a huge co-op. We don't necessarily know, but if we're coming from acknowledging the sadness and acknowledging the trauma and seeing how we're all connected, all beings, all people and all beings, then we can find the courage to act. He talks about a few others, discernment, to discern what is actually going on in the world, to study that. Equity, he calls it, to see how can we treat all equally, especially in terms of economic realities. And then peace, just to decrease the militarism that's so much a part of our society now, to encourage peace. Anyway, so all of this is about how we respond to the sadness and grief and trauma that we've all experienced in various ways, some more than others, of course, but that's hard to evaluate, and we don't need to evaluate that.

[33:53]

If we just feel what we're feeling, and don't hide from that and express our vulnerability. I don't know the answer to any of this. I don't know. But together as Sangha, we have some opportunity to respond. So, Again, in the middle of all this, I want to mention joy that we can actually face our fears and trauma and sadness. It can be upright and present. And our sitting practice teaches us how that is and sustaining our sitting practice over time. Naturally, Maybe gradually, we feel some resilience.

[34:57]

We're able to withstand, we're able to face all of the sadness and grief and so forth. And then we can enjoy all the things that there are to enjoy. So this month we will celebrate, or this coming month, we will celebrate Thanksgiving I feel that's a Buddhist, historical, American roots of thanksgiving, but just thankfulness, gratitude, to be grateful for all the wonderful things each of us has. And then giving is the natural response to that. How do we support each other? How do we express generosity to each other and to all in the world? So this is, how we create an island of sanity in a world full of chaos and sadness and disinformation.

[36:02]

So part of that, an important part of all of that is to talk together. So I'm glad we have some time now. I wanna just hear your responses, comments, questions about any of this. Please feel free, if you're present, if you're visible on the screen, you can just raise your hand. For those who are not visible on the screen, you can go to the Participants button on the bottom of the Zoom screen. There's a, at the bottom of the participants window, there's a raise hand function. So you can do, you can raise your hand that way. So David Ray, would you help me call on people? So please comments, questions, responses. Anyone want to acknowledge their trauma and grief this morning?

[37:18]

Ishan, is your hand up? I can't tell. You're kind of sideways. Yeah, you know, I was actually, thanks for asking. I was trying to figure out how on my phone I can raise my hand. So thank you for noticing that. I am really feeling this topic right now and I especially just wanted to offer my appreciation to you for giving this talk today because really it was supposed to be me giving this talk today and I am unable to do that. I am not in a place where I can do this right now. I am in a place right now where I need to listen to and appreciate the wisdom and offerings of others. And that brings a certain amount of shame for me that I had to not be able to show up for this.

[38:32]

And yet also I think that that is part of being human, that we sometimes have things to give and we sometimes don't have things to give. And yeah, and as it impacts the pandemic, I've been doing a lot of taking care of others lately. Mostly because they've been able to come out of their homes and show up for that. Um, you know, I I was working this is mostly through my job, but also through my my family and friends and um the ways in which we were so isolated, uh physically last year made it hard for many people to stay connected in in a way that that allowed them to get some care and And now that things have eased up a little bit more, people are recognizing their trauma and recognizing that they need care.

[39:40]

Even within my own family, my father really languished. My 83-year-old father really languished during the pandemic. And it was only when we were able to all get back together again that we noticed and really insisted that he get some more care. And I think that that's probably true of a lot of people. So I will stop going on, but just to express that I'm so very aware right now of my own human limitations and appreciative that others are able to step in who maybe aren't as limited right now. And at some other time, the shoe will be on the other foot for all of us. So thank you. Thank you very much, Aishan. And Aishan has a really demanding job. I mean, a lot of people do, but

[40:44]

Hers is especially, and I'm happy to be here and be able to step in for you. And we had to cancel the all-day sitting that was originally scheduled for today, but we will be having an all-day Rohatsu Sashin, I think it's December 5th, the first Sunday in December. And that will be at Ebenezer Church, but also online. And Douglas will be leading that, our lay teacher. So, you know, sangha means that we support each other and care. And Haitian's job is particularly directly facing trauma and grief, but we all do in some ways. Hers is extremely demanding, her job. But I also wanna just say that I think it's not so helpful to respond, to act from shame or guilt.

[41:47]

It's not that we shouldn't feel shame or guilt when we feel it, but that kind of separates us. We have to be, courageous, as Bhikkhu Bodhi says, and express our vulnerability and our difficulties and our sadness at this difficult world. So Asian, thank you for helping so many people now who have been traumatized and are grief stricken. And, but there's nothing to be ashamed of. Part of Sangha is that we do step in for each other when needed, and we can make adjustments. And when we start practicing in three Sundays at Ebenezer Church, we're gonna have to make lots of adjustments and figure out how to make it work. It'll take a little while. So anyway, thank you for your testimony.

[42:52]

Other comments, responses, questions, at this time. Talking together, listening to each other is one of the ways we express sanity. David Ray. Thank you, Tuggen. I appreciate your talking about this topic. In my men's work, we use this term sometimes, a safe container. I feel, thank you, Ayshan, I feel the safety of this container as a place where it is safe for me and for everyone to express honestly. where I am and how I'm feeling about it.

[44:00]

I'm grateful for that. There's a definition of trauma that I've heard somewhere that works for me, that it's a situation that is both intolerable and inescapable. And I'm finding myself thinking about the ways that this has been almost two years of an intolerable and also inescapable situation, just like, You know, like the worst, like the worst childhood ever. You know, like the kind of low level rotten situation that one wakes up to every, that I have been waking up to every morning. And there it is again. It's still here. I'm back in the classroom. That's both weird and wonderful. There are strange rogue energies that I don't understand as we sit there in masks. It's very strange and also wonderful. I finally got a therapist. It's been like, you know, two or three years since I've, no, longer, way longer than that.

[45:01]

And this is a really good thing, acknowledging that. I had at least one friend say to me, David, I'm exhausted. I just can't, you know, I love you, but I can't do this for you anymore. I realized, oh, I really, I really need to find a way to have somebody, you know, be in that therapeutic space for me. I'm grateful for this Sangha, and it's cool to think about how this is not my therapy group. This is a place where I come for Dharma and for Sangha and refuge. I'm intensely grateful for it. I'm excited about moving into a physical space. I feel fear. I feel excitement about it, and other feelings as well. I'm worried about my former partner who has moved back to Los Angeles, and I haven't heard from him in two days, and I'm worried about him.

[46:03]

So those are some things that I'm sitting with. And I want to say again, this sangha has been a lifeline, an anchor, a buoy. Choose your nautical or other metaphor. It's been a It's been a mainstay of my life since January of 2020. It's hard to imagine how this time would have been for me without it. OK, I'm going to stop. But thanks, everyone. Thank you, Taigan, and thanks, everyone. Thank you, David. I want to say a little bit about Sangha as a container for sanity and safety and refuge. So if all of you are part of this Sangha of Ancient Dragons Zen Gate, even those of you who are here for the first time, just showing up, just showing up is a hugely important practice.

[47:07]

And that's, you know, in all kinds of ways, showing up in Sangha, showing up in other communities, showing up in your life, facing the trauma and the sadness and the confusion of our world now with friends and family and also together. So welcome to everyone. And we are working to find ways to sustain Ancient Dragons Endgame and over the long haul. And it's going to be a long haul. There's a lot of difficulty that's coming. Nicholas, all the way from Indiana, how are you? Hi. Hey. I'm pretty good. Thank you. You know,

[48:09]

This is the second pandemic that I've lived through and survived. So I did feel like I had some tools or that I had faced this level of darkness before and had faith that I would come out the other end. Indeed, I think I have but it was this pandemic was nevertheless extremely traumatic for me On a financial level because I'm in the movie business and you know, the movie business was decimated by this pandemic and It's only now just really starting to come back. So for many months, I thought, you know, I was just circling the drain and would, you know, lose everything.

[49:17]

And, you know, my solution was to double down on my zazen and my spiritual practice, because I really do believe that if I'm spiritually fit, then you know, my life takes care of itself. I just have to keep showing up and, you know, that's what I would do every morning. You know, chop wood, carry water, as they say. This is insane, as I'm sure many of you know. And basically, you know, trust that things were gonna be okay no matter what happened. And so it was, for me, it was a huge lesson in when things fall apart, you know, that what's really key for me is to trust that process.

[50:28]

And then, what started to happen was solutions started to open up where they never really existed before ever in in our world in terms of PPP loans and all kinds of government assistance and I have to say the government really did show up for businesses and I know that is a place of privilege and I just want to acknowledge that but And things, you know, one day at a time, just pathways started to manifest that made it possible for things to work out for our business. And so, I also just wanted to mention, too, the, you know, you mentioned, you know,

[51:32]

listening to people that think differently than I do. I live in a very red part of Indiana, and so I have to deal with a lot of people that think differently about the world than I do. And it's exhausting, frankly. And I can't wait to get back up to Chicago on a more permanent basis, as I have been before the pandemic. But I've also learned a lot about that too, of just kind of embracing the don't know mind and like, what do I really know? And just letting go of my reactions, my need to be right, my need to change people's opinions, my need to get people on the right side, all that kind of stuff.

[52:40]

Those are the kind of issues that come up to me when I'm talking or listening or having to hear. You know, crazy comments that I hear with some frequency. You know, it's just, you know, like I forget what Joanna called it, but I think it was the first point, like holding or something. Holding actions to take care of, strengthen what remains, yeah. Yeah, and so I just, I've just gotten better at just holding and you know, and I and I fail miserably too. And I've never, you know, I feel like I'm just such I, you know, have a lot of moments that I'm not proud of in terms of my communication with various people, including my family. But I'm just doing the best I can. And so that's what I have to say. Thank you.

[53:42]

Thanks. And this community has always been such a touchstone for me and so important in my life in Chicago and my life during the pandemic. And I'm so grateful that we're gonna be able to meet in person again soon and that we're looking for a new home. And I just look forward to continuing and becoming more involved with ancient dragons. So, thanks everyone. Thank you so much, Nicholas. I look forward to seeing you too. So many of us, it's been so long since we've actually seen each other except in these funny little Zoom boxes. I want to, a couple of things, responses. First, Nicholas, thank you for bringing up the AIDS epidemic. I was in San Francisco. in the 80s, and lost family members, friends, songwriters.

[54:46]

Going through these struggles makes us stronger, as you indicated, Nicholas, and this one is big for all of us. Not everybody has survived lots of losses, but how do we learn from trauma and from difficulty and become more caring and more vulnerable and more connected with each other? Thank you also to both David and Nicholas for mentioning exhaustion. there have been times when I've been just totally exhausted. And there's so much to do and, you know, that's great in a way, but also difficult, difficult, difficult.

[55:53]

And so my mantra these days, There's lots of sangha people I want to talk to and I can't talk to them all and get to them all this week and people send me several books or long articles to read each week. And some of them are old friends who want book endorsements, and I just, I can't do it all. So, I can't do everything has become my mantra. There's a Buddhist saying to just say yes to everything. But my way of just saying yes to everything is to say I can't do everything. So how do I take care of what's in front of me? How do I do whatever I can do? But in the middle of exhaustion, I also want to say it's important to practice self-care. Not self-care as opposed to caring for the whole world, but just to take care of yourself as part of the whole world and to actually enjoy the things that you enjoy.

[57:06]

So all of the so-called guilty pleasures, whatever, you know, the things that you just, you know, I mean, it could be just going for walks or it could be when we can't go to the movie theaters, watching things on Netflix or whatever. How do we find things that, enjoy the things that we can enjoy in the midst of exhaustion? and then come back and help out as we can, show up. So thank you so much, Nicholas and David. Other comments, responses? There's a question from Dylan that I forgot to read to you. Dylan asks, what is Zazen? I don't know. What is Zazen? Zazen is just sitting. Zazen is silent illumination.

[58:10]

Zazen is being upright in the middle of everything. Zazen is just showing up in your life. Zazen is sitting upright and still facing the wall until the bell rings. Zazen is feeling the things that you feel. thoughts and feelings naturally arise in Sazen. Sazen is not getting rid of all thoughts and feelings. It's not lobotomy Zen. It's paying attention, even when you're sleepy, even when your mind is racing around, monkey mind, just paying attention, being present and feeling what you feel and admitting that to yourself. and also meeting with others. Zazen is the precepts, which I'll be talking about more later this coming month.

[59:13]

Zazen is how do we take care of the world. Zazen is just stopping. Zazen is opening up to the spaciousness of our world and our life. Sassen is not any of the things I've just said. Does that help, Dylan? Any other questions, large or small? Comments, responses? Miriam, is your hand raised? Can't hear you. Miriam, you're still muted.

[60:18]

I got it. I got it. Am I OK now? Yes, I can hear you. Hey, wonderful. Yes. First, I want to thank you for the talk, which is most timely. Obviously for others and myself. I want to thank the others who spoke and made it possible for me to speak. In the midst of the pandemic, the first six months in, my husband got cancer, very serious. But thanks to radiation, it was got rid of it. Then we were on top of the moon and he got a stroke. And still, he's making some progress. Interestingly enough, his head is making better progress than his body, which is very frail. But if it weren't for Buddhism, I would have never got this far.

[61:21]

And I think going forward isn't so awful as it was six months ago. And I want to thank everybody for talking honestly, about their own experiences. And it does help. I don't know why that helps. It shouldn't be that because somebody else is sore, that should help. But at least you sort of belong to a community of people who are struggling. And I guess I think the group experience is very strengthening. So thank you very much. Thank you, thank you so much, Miriam. It's great to see you. Miriam is a very long time Zen practitioner. She used to practice with Susan Postel, an old friend, a Dharma teacher who passed away a while ago.

[62:24]

This world can be very sad. And yet we are all in it together, as Miriam was saying. That's wonderful, you know? So, anyway, here we are. I'm glad Bart is doing a little bit better, Miriam, and thank you for being here. Other comments, questions, responses? any of you have to offer are welcome. Eileen. Hi, I feel, thank you for calling on me. I feel, I don't know, compelled to share this little personal moment.

[63:30]

I have been looking for a home now for a really long time and having trouble because of the pandemic, because of the market, because of co-op closing in New York, because of a lot of things, and because of money. And I have been Ah, sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down, but I've really been divorced from my core feelings, those things, emotions, I forgot about those emotions. So this is not my inherent personality, I'm a very emotional person, it's just hasn't been there for a while. And I was driving in the car, I'm driving a lot here, you know, it's a lot of driving, 15 minutes just to get a cup of coffee and look at people. And I was thinking about being present and thinking about, okay, I'm being present. What am I doing? I'm totally in the future, constantly. I am absolutely not present, I said to myself. And so I got, came, what am I doing?

[64:32]

I'm driving the car. And I felt like a little kid pretending to drive. And as that happened, the trees became more beautiful and more alive and the things around me became more, real. And then I got to my little place for coffee, jumping over some things. And I went to the bathroom, I washed my hands, I came out, I'm still feeling pretty, pretty shitty. And, and I put my face in my hands. And it smells good. So smell good. And what that did was give me a little bit of emotion. I got a little bit of sadness, a little happiness of that actual emotion from letting go of what's next, what's next, what's next, how can you know what's next? I learned in that moment when you're not, I mean, I know this, but intellectually, but how can you get what's next if you're not here, if you don't know where you are?

[65:34]

So this coming present, very minute to minute and very, very daily, thing that is an amazing spiritual practice. It is probably, you can put that in the what is a Zen list. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Thank you very much Eileen. I hope that you can find a place to settle a home. Thank you. Eileen was living in New York for a long time when she first joined our Zoom Sangha. I want to say something about being present though. Yes, being present means just facing what's in front of us now, but also being present means it includes everything in our past and everything in our future.

[66:34]

So I think in a situation where you're struggling to find a new place or where we're struggling with anything, it's part of our present to be wondering about the future. That may be what's in front of us. Or in a situation where we feel some regret or even shame about things that have happened, that may be present too. At the same time, just to face what's in front of us, you know, driving the car, sitting at a table in a cafe, whatever it is. So it's complicated being present. And as I was saying to not, to acknowledge our trauma and our fear and our sadness, Also may mean to acknowledge our concerns and fears about the future, our regrets and disappointments and shame and all that stuff about the past.

[67:46]

At the same time. Yes, here we are in front of a computer or whatever, a cell phone or whatever, and looking at people on Zoom boxes. It's such a funny thing. There are a lot of people who, you know, a lot of the people in our old Irving Park, Zendo, Sanga, I don't know, I don't know how many, I don't want to quantify it, but there are people who just don't come to or Zoom Sangha, or don't come very often, there's this thing called being Zoom-averse. So there are people who are at their work, you know, sitting in front of a Zoom window for hours during the day. Or there are people who just feel, you know, uncomfortable with the medium. I've gotten comfortable with it, I guess, in a way, but I also miss being in the same room with folks. Anyway, facing what's in front of us. I think Miriam, maybe that's your phone.

[68:57]

Anyway, facing all of it, facing what's immediately present in front of us includes that, yes, part of who we are is all that stuff in the past, stuff we don't even know. You know, in terms of interconnectedness, I used to still, I guess, sometimes ask people, how many of you remember your fifth grade teacher, who they were? Just a few hands went up. How many of you who raised your hand have thought about your fifth grade teacher in the last month? So nobody raised their hand. So, you know, but it's still part of whatever that was, it's still part of who you are, that past and all the things that are going to happen in the future. So a big part of our practice now in the face of climate breakdown and political oppression and all of the difficulties we face

[70:08]

is how do we take care of the future? So we're practicing for the present, but we're also practicing for the future very, very much. Immediately for me, taking care of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, finding a place where we can be settled in Chicago so that people in Chicago can do this practice in five years or in 10 years or in 20 years. How do we take care? So our practice is about this continuation. Our practice is about venerating the ancestors, we say, which means the lineage of Zen teachers who kept alive this practice and teaching, but it also means all kinds of cultural ancestors, all the previous psychologists who Ayshan is influenced by in her work. For example, all the previous musicians who Emily appreciates as a musician herself.

[71:11]

Emily, can you just tell me one of your musical ancestors, some musician or composer or whatever who you appreciate? Let's see, I really appreciate Paulina Olivares. She's somebody whose work I've been spending a lot of time with recently. And she put together a work called Deep Listening that's all about really sort of spending time with sound in a very intentional and very concentrated way. And she is also one of the earliest electronic like women electronic musicians and just electronic musicians in general. So yeah, we're all greatly indebted to her. Even people like John Cage were kind of influenced by her thinking. Say her name again, please. Pauline Oliveros. Thank you.

[72:12]

I don't know about her, but I appreciate that you appreciate her. So we're all connected to many beings in the past and the future who we don't really know yet. So I'm not a musician, but I like music and, you know, I really appreciate Bach and Mozart and John Coltrane and many, many, many others. So we're all connected to the past right now, and we're all connected to the future right now. How do we keep alive the, so for Emily, how to keep alive the musical traditions that inspire you and so forth. So this is in response to Eileen's, invoking the present, which I really appreciate and agree with, but also the present is very rich. And in times of trauma and grief, it's maybe difficult to remember. Anyway, thank you all. We have time for one or maybe two more people.

[73:15]

If anybody else has any comments or responses or questions or anything to share, please feel free. Well, maybe not. Um, so thank you all just for being here and showing up. Um, David Ray, would you lead us in our closing chant and well-being dedication and, um, and then I'll make some announcements about upcoming events. So thank you all. If you could all mute yourselves. I'll make sure everybody's muted, and then I'll share the screen. We'll chant the repentance verse three times, and then the Metta Sutta. Let's see if we can get to it. And the verse. All my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow.

[74:29]

All my ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate and delusion Born through body, speech and mind I now fully avow All my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. Metasuta. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace. Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere, without pride, easily contented and joyous. Let one not be submerged by the things of the world.

[75:31]

Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches. Let one's senses be controlled. Let one be wise but not puffed up. And let one not desire great possessions even for one's family. Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. All living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, May all beings be happy. Let no one deceive another, nor despise any being in any state. Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watched is over and protects her only child. So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit.

[76:40]

Let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours, let one practice the way with gratitude. Not holding to fixed views, endowed with insight, freed from sense appetites, one who achieves the way will be freed from the duality of birth and death. May all awakened beings extend with true compassion their luminous mirror wisdom. With full awareness we have chanted the Metta Sutta. We dedicate this merit to... Our original ancestor in India, great teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha. Our first woman ancestor, great teacher, Maha Prajapati. Our first ancestor in China, great teacher, Bodhidharma.

[77:41]

Our first ancestor in Japan, great teacher, Eihei Dogen. Our first ancestor in America, great teacher, Shogaku Shunryu, the perfect wisdom, Bodhisattva Manjushri. Gratefully we offer this virtue to all beings. All Buddhas throughout space and time. All honored ones, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas. Wisdom beyond wisdom. Mahaprajnaparamita. Namita.

[78:28]

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